Well, if this doesn't beat all. From the woman who thinks... women are stupid. "This just in! Atheists are boring! Really, they are. So boring, in fact, I've got to write about...how boring they are."
Really, Charlotte Allen? "Boohoo victimism"? Is that anything like voodoo economics? Wow. I'm hoping this article is meant to be ironic, as in, "Look! I'm going to make all of these arguments about other people being meanie mean meanies, and just to up the ante, I'll use every single tactic I excoriate them for in my own arguments."
I for one, have nothing against meanie mean meanies. But I do really rankle at hypocrites, which is what Ms. Allen is being in this take on atheists.
Unintentional Irony in italics.
My problem with atheists is their tiresome -- and way old -- insistence that they are being oppressed and their fixation with the fine points of Christianity. What -- did their Sunday school teachers flog their behinds with a Bible when they were kids?
Charlotte Allen is taking this opportunity to berate atheists for their supposed victimization complex, and their odd "fixation" on religion, in an article saying meanie atheists should stop picking on believers, because C. Allen's exhaustive study of What Atheists Believe has found their beliefs wanting.
Pot? Kettle?
Read Dawkins, or Hitchens, or the works of fellow atheists Sam Harris ("The End of Faith") and Daniel Dennett ("Breaking the Spell"), or visit an atheist website or blog (there are zillions of them, bearing such titles as "God Is for Suckers," "God Is Imaginary" and "God Is Pretend"), and your eyes will glaze over as you peruse -- again and again -- the obsessively tiny range of topics around which atheists circle like water in a drain.
Charlotte Allen is surprised and disgusted to find atheists talking about atheism in books on atheism and websites on atheism, so she writes an article on atheisim...to point that out (and talks about atheism in the process). I mean, the audacity of those windbags! talking about atheism on an atheism blog or in an atheism book like its a valid topic, or something? Where is Dawkins' Best Cinnamon Rolls Ever! recipe in "The God Delusion"? Why doesn't the "God is Imaginary" website offer more celebrity gossip- that's what Charlotte Allen wants to know!
First off, there's atheist victimology: Boohoo, everybody hates us 'cuz we don't believe in God. Although a recent Pew Forum survey on religion found that 16% of Americans describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated, only 1.6% call themselves atheists...Maybe atheists wouldn't be so unpopular if they stopped beating the drum until the hide splits on their second-favorite topic: How stupid people are who believe in God.
Now, Charolotte Allen will conclusively put the nail in the coffin of the atheists' whiny argument that they are unpopular, by pointing out how unpopular they are. In a mocking way. I think that really speaks for itself.
Then there's P.Z. Myers, biology professor at the University of Minnesota's Morris campus, whose blog, Pharyngula, is supposedly about Myers' field, evolutionary biology, but is actually about his fanatical propensity to label religious believers as "idiots," "morons," "loony" or "imbecilic" in nearly every post. The university deactivated its link to Myers' blog in July after he posted a photo of a consecrated host from a Mass that he had pierced with a rusty nail and thrown into the garbage ("I hope Jesus' tetanus shots are up to date") in an effort to prove that Catholicism is bunk -- or something.
Charolotte Allen wants to assure us that no one, in fact is trying to silence the wacky atheists, by pointing out that an atheists' blog which was found 'offensive' was de-linked from an institutional website. Again, with a heavy dose of snark. I actually read Pharyngula, was reading during the hubub, and Charlotte is leaving out one crucial point- while PZ was calling the belief that a cracker becomes the body of a dead mangod "loony", those sweet believers were leveling death threats at him. Who is being outlandish and incendiary, again?
Another topic that atheists beat like the hammer on the anvil in the old Anacin commercials is Darwinism versus creationism. Maybe Darwin-o-mania stems from the fact that this year marks the bicentennial of Charles Darwin's birth in 1809, but haven't atheists heard that many religious people (including the late Pope John Paul II) don't have a problem with evolution but, rather, regard it as God's way of letting his living creation unfold? Furthermore, even if human nature as we know it is a matter of lucky adaptations, how exactly does that disprove the existence of God?
Charlotte is in rare form now. How dare those brutish atheists get all worked up over evolution (does anyone really call it Darwinism any more? I thought that went out with the Scopes trial). She takes them to task for their incessant re-hashing of the same old tropes...by throwing out the oldest, tropeist trope- "God isn't disproved by evolution, 'cause maybe evolution was really His idea! NaaaNaa!" Clearly, no atheist has ever heard that before. And obviously, Charlotte is missing the point entirely if she thinks "...many religious people (including the late Pope John Paul II) don't have a problem with evolution but, rather, regard it as God's way of letting his living creation unfold?" is anything but the very thing atheists would take issue with. Psst- here's a clue, Charlotte- atheists don't believe God exists! That would be like an atheist saying to a Christian, "Gee. I think "God" is just an evolutionary adaptation of the human brain. We really believe the same thing, buddy!"
The problem with atheists -- and what makes them such excruciating snoozes -- is that few of them are interested in making serious metaphysical or epistemological arguments against God's existence, or in taking on the serious arguments that theologians have made attempting to reconcile, say, God's omniscience with free will or God's goodness with human suffering. Atheists seem to assume that the whole idea of God is a ridiculous absurdity, the "flying spaghetti monster" of atheists' typically lame jokes. They think that lobbing a few Gaza-style rockets accusing God of failing to create a world more to their liking ("If there's a God, why aren't I rich?" "If there's a God, why didn't he give me two heads so I could sleep with one head while I get some work done with the other?") will suffice to knock down the entire edifice of belief.
Oh, ho! Now we get to the meat of it! Charlotte is going to enlighten us as to the real problem with atheists. They don't engage in intellectually honest or rigorous arguments with believers! To that end, she's going to let a brief listing of the titles of some recent, serious books on this very subject stand in for a real takedown of any of the arguments these works present, and instead, poke at some strawmen ("If there's a God, why aren't I rich?" is just the absolute basis of Dawkins, Hitchens, Denett, et al's works, doncha know?). Flying Spaghetti Monster! LOL! That's not intellectually dishonest in the slightest, now is it?
What atheists don't seem to realize is that even for believers, faith is never easy in this world of injustice, pain and delusion. Even for believers, God exists just beyond the scrim of the senses. So, atheists, how about losing the tired sarcasm and boring self-pity and engaging believers seriously?
Finally, for her coup de grace, Charlotte wishes to take those nasty atheists to task for their boring, hurtful screeds that harp on the fact that there is no proof that God exists, and its silly to believe in something that there is no proof for, by boldly asserting that even believers can muster no real proof for God. Way to go, Charlotte! Knockout punch! That'll teach those uppity atheists!
...or will it? Whaaaahahahah!!!!
Mush and Peanut On Creationism
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